Quote:
Originally Posted by Freiwillige
Texans are Texans and Germans are Germans. And some Texans were Germans!
Germans are engineers and I would have thought that they would have just engineered a unified Germany by now. If East Germany lacks development then by god, Develop it! Its a win, win situation. The east gets jobs the west get new industrial ground.
Maybe I am just too dern American to wrap my head around this.
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That isn't that simple. The economy in the east was totally run down. The companies were not designed to compete against each other. They either failed completely on the free market or had to be shut down because of environment and safety regulations (you did not have to see that you crossed the border to the DDR, you could smell it). Another thing is that a lot of western companies didn't see any reason for going to the east. The infrastructure was terrible and they were afraid that that the East-Germans were not used to work hard enough to compare to western workers (in socialism there was a right to have a job IIRC).
So far plenty of money has flown to the east but money alone doesn't solve the problem. The infrastructure has been vastly improved and several big factories were build in the East but even that is not enough.
Another problem is the rising of Nazism in some parts of the East. It definitely doesn't help to settle large international companies in those areas.
@OTH
I've never seen slaves that were given billions after billions of €.